1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to an image forming apparatus, and more particularly, to an image forming apparatus which can expand the space of a discharging unit.
2. Related Art
An image forming apparatus generally includes: a charging unit which charges the surface of a photosensitive body to a predetermined potential; an exposure unit which irradiates light onto the surface of the photosensitive body using a light scanning unit such as a laser scanning unit (LSU) to form an electrostatic latent image thereon; a developing unit which supplies a developing agent such as toner onto the electrostatic latent image to develop it into a visible image such as a toner image; a sheet feeding unit which picks up individual sheet of printable media, such as paper, loaded in a main sheet feeding cassette and conveys the individual sheet of paper along a conveying path; a transferring unit which transfers the visible image formed on the photosensitive body onto the sheet of paper; a fixing unit which fuses the visible image onto the sheet of paper via high temperature and high pressure; and a discharging unit which discharges the sheet of paper on which the visible image has been fused from the image forming apparatus.
Examples of such an image forming apparatus include a printer, a scanner, a copier, and a facsimile machine used to print characters or pictures on printable medium. Recently, a multi-functional product capable of performing various functions including printing, scanning, copying and facsimileing has become widely used. This multi-functional product combines a scanner unit for reading an image from an original sheet using an optical signal and converting the optical signal into an electrical signal, and a printer unit for forming an image on a sheet of printable medium, such as paper or film.
Accordingly, when the multi-functional product individually performs scanning and printing, the scanner unit and the printer unit are individually driven. Furthermore, when the multi-functional product performs copying, the scanner unit and the printer unit are utilized to print the same image as that of the original sheet, onto another sheet. That is, when the original sheet on which an image is formed is laid on the scanner unit of the multi-functional product, the scanner unit scans the image on the original sheet and transfers scan data of the image to the printer unit and the printer unit develops, transfers, and fuses the same image in accordance with the transferred scan data, thereby forming the image of the original sheet on another sheet.
Meanwhile, in order to minimize the size of the multi-functional product having various functions, a discharging unit in which discharged sheets are accumulated has been designed to be as small as possible. However, if the discharging unit placed between the scanner unit and the printer unit is minimized, the capacity of the discharging unit may become smaller.
Accordingly, in order to address this problem, the scanner unit as well as an original sheet cover unit is hinge-coupled to a main body of a multi-functional product, thereby allowing it to rotate upward. If the discharged sheets are accumulated and the discharging unit has no space, the scanner unit is pushed up to expand the space of the discharging unit. To this end, a scanner rotating unit is provided in the main body of the multi-functional product.
However, since the scanner rotating unit is operated manually, its operation can be inconvenient to a user. In addition, when the scanner unit is held close to the main body, it is difficult to find out how many sheets of printable media are accumulated in the discharging unit. Furthermore, if the scanner unit is not pushed up in time, a paper jam may occur due to successive discharging of the sheets of the printable media.